Riverside County will pay back $540,000 in juvenile fees to 1,200 class members to settle a lawsuit that alleged illegal collection of juvenile detention fees.
The 2017 law Senate Bill 190 eliminated each county’s ability to charge families fees for the administration of juvenile justice centers. The county continued to collect $4.1 million in outstanding fees until March 2020, the Western Center on Law and Poverty claimed.
The county agreed to stop collecting fees when the lawsuit was filed.
Shirley and Daniel Freeman brought the case, with co-plaintiff Tiffine Hansbrough, after the county spent 10 years trying to collect $8,000 in fees related to their grandson’s time in juvenile detention. The Freemans were retired and lived off of Social Security while they raised their three grandkids, but still paid the county $3,000.
“Shirley and I brought this lawsuit because we wanted to help other families receive justice for what happened,” said Daniel, according to a press release.
“After a long journey, I am proud of what this case has accomplished,” he continued.
Riverside County Probation Chief Christopher Wright provided a statement indicating satisfaction with the settlement.
“Through this settlement, the county is pleased to have reached an agreement on this situation. It’s important to note that the county has already taken proactive steps to waive $4.1 million in outstanding juvenile detention fees and has stopped collecting fees entirely. The Probation Department will continue the positive work we do to provide for the needs of youth and their families,” the statement reads.
Class member Patricia Segura said she lost out on tax refunds and suffered a lower credit rating after Riverside County sought thousands of dollars after her teenage son spent time in a juvenile detention.
“It felt so unfair,” said Segura. “I was trying to do the best I could for my kids, and the County was charging me and taking away the money that I needed to care for them.”
Senate Bill 190
Then-State Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles) authored SB 190. It passed the Senate 36-4 and the Assembly 57-9. The loss of the fees was expected to remove between $5 million and $10 million in revenue across the state.
Riverside County charged $30 per day at juvenile hall, according to a Senate report. San Bernardino charged $21 per day, and only nine other counties charged fees at all.
Mitchell argued that the fee should be dropped to support families, citing a University of California Berkeley Law report that labeled the fees as regressive and racially disparate.
“Juvenile administrative fees cause financial hardship to families, weaken family ties, and undermine family reunification,” Mitchell wrote.
“Criminologists recently found that juvenile debt correlates with a greater likelihood of recidivism, even after controlling for case characteristics and youth demographics,” she continued.
After SB 190 passed, Riverside County was required to determine families could pay the fees before imposing them, the plaintiffs argued.
The plaintiffs
The county began collecting from the Freemans in 2008, and did not assess their ability to pay as required by law until 2019, their complaint says. At the 2019 assessment, the juvenile court found that the Freemans could not continue to pay the remaining $5,000, and freed them from the responsibility. The court did not, however, order the county to pay back the $3,000 the couple had already paid.
Case information
Riverside Superior Judge Craig Riemer approved the settlement June 2.
Case No. RIC2001772
Rebecca Miller, Richard Rothschild and Alexander Prieto of the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and Michael Harris, Hong Le and Crystal Adams of the National Center for Youth Law, represented the plaintiffs.
Read the complaint here.
Read the notice of settlement here.
